It's kind of costly – especially on Switch – but, as the author's kid asks, "can you really put a price on getting mom to play games with us?"

Puyo Puyo Tetris combines its two titular games in a variety of creative ways, from making players manipulate both types of blocks on the same board to quickly switching back and forth between Puyo Puyo and Tetris boards.

You can probably guess exactly what Puyo Puyo Tetris is based on its name: A combination of the beloved, decades-old block stacking puzzle games Tetris and Puyo Puyo (A.K.A. Puyo Pop, if you’re a North American arcade rat of a certain age, or Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine if you were a Sega kid).

This remix lets you play both games in their original form, alone, with, or against up to three friends. But you can also jump into myriad modes that combine them in creative ways. Multiplayer game types – local, LAN with two Switches, tabletop, or online – see players working with both Tetris and Puyo Puyo blocks on the same board, alternating between Tetris and Puyo Puyo boards, clearing specific shapes or creating distinct chains, and clearing special items that cause trouble on opponents’ boards. There’s also a single-player “Adventure” mode tells a weird story about kids meeting extra-terrestrial visitors and doing battle via a series of Puyo Puyo and Tetris matches, each level offering a quick and distinct objective with set rules.

It’s undeniably expensive for a puzzle game: $55 for a physical version on Switch, $40 on PlayStation 4 disc or a Switch download (yes, disc only on PS4. Yes, no Xbox One version despite it coming out on Xbox in Japan). But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen another puzzle game with a bigger collection of modes, settings, and multiplayer options. It feels like Sonic Team cheaped on nothing – there’s even full voice acting throughout the story mode.

What excited me most about Puyo Puyo Tetris, though, is that it represented a chance for my family to play a game together. All three of us. There are few games beyond Mario Party that will lure my wife to pick up a controller and play with me and our kid. But she’s a lifelong fan of puzzle games. And Tetris is her all-time favourite.

So we played. And then we played some more. Once we played so long that we lost track of time and nearly missed supper. It’s our new go-to family game, all but guaranteed to deliver a fun and social experience each time we play. And I wanted to understand why. So I sat my wife and kid down and asked some questions. An edited transcript of that discussion, below, will serve as our review.

Sega

Aside from Mario Party games, we rarely play together. Mostly because you, wife, kind of hate the games the kid and I play. But I’m pretty sure you had fun with this one. And that you’ll play it more. Why?

Wife: Because Tetris. From a game perspective, Tetris was my first love. And you never forget your first love. No other game matched my obsession after I got a Game Boy with Tetris in 1990 from my boyfriend.

Who wasn’t me. So enough about him. Your reaction to the story mode was about what I expected, though.

Wife: Story modes are stupid. Why do you need a story? It’s Tetris. Do you need a story when you’re building Lego? Doing a jigsaw puzzle? It’s the same thing. You don’t need an artificial story to prop up an already 100 per cent strong game.

Kid, you didn’t like the story much either.

Kid: It felt like it was for three-year-olds. You know when you watch a TV show and you see something really girly and a character says something like, “a princess farted a rainbow.” That’s what this story felt like. It’s fluffy and dumb.

The story is definitely nonsensical. And segments are way too long. You spend more time watching characters talk than playing the game. But I do like the individual levels. They’re basically quick challenges with very specific objectives. I’m a big fan of objectives.

Wife: The challenges are fine. But they don’t require the artifice of a story. I just skipped the talking and went to the next level. It’s like when I played Professor Layton games. I just skipped all the dialogue. I have no idea what happened in those games, but I loved the puzzles.

Story aside, we’ve all had loads of fun with the local multiplayer. Which is where most people are going to spend the bulk of their time. We started off playing in tabletop mode, but the puzzle boards are too small on the Switch’s wee screen to see comfortably from more than a few feet away, which forced us to huddle around it together. That wasn’t ideal. But when we moved to the living room and threw it up on a big TV we couldn’t stop playing. We almost missed a dinner reservation one night.

Kid: So true. I wouldn’t have minded skipping supper to play.

You’re pretty much a rookie at these kinds of games, kid, and – forgive me – it kind of showed when you were playing Tetris. You definitely have some practicing to do there. But you were – and are – a force to be reckoned with when it comes to Puyo Puyo. I mean, there were matches when you used Puyo Puyo to demolish both of us as we played Tetris, which we’ve been playing for, like, 30 years.

Kid: And I’ve never played Puyo Puyo before. It’s kind of like Dr. Mario, though, right? So now I really want to go back and try that game again. It’s been so long since I played that I forget it.

Wife: She has her mother’s knack for puzzle games. And, really, that made me want to play more. I took zero mercy on her. Like when we play board games, the competitive spirit of our family took hold.

There’s a huge range of multiplayer modes, and they get pretty crazy. Switching between Tetris and Puyo Puyo, combining both on one board, team play, speed play, items that royally mess up other players’ boards – the options are impressive. But we each liked some modes better than others.

Kid: Fusion – the one where you have to work with pieces from both games on the same board – is my favourite. I had a strategy that you guys just ignored, even though I kept telling you what it was. And that was fine by me. You’ll learn to trust me one day.

Wife: I hate Fusion. It’s cross-contamination. These two games are good on their own, but that mode turns them into one bad game. But I do like Swap…

Kid: Swap is AWFUL!

Wife: …where you switch back and forth between both games. You get to play both games, but they’re kept separate. You just move between boards. I like playing them separately.

I’m pretty impressed with the sheer range of options and play modes. Story, arcade, local party, LAN… I mean, there are half a dozen control schemes, for Pete’s sake – including one that lets you play one-handed. I can’t believe I’m saying this, given that you can buy puzzle apps for just a couple of bucks these days, but $55 for this game at retail – or $40, if you play it on PS4 or download it on the Switch – doesn’t seem as outrageous as it should. It’s still too much, but you’re getting a ton of puzzle game, including a full-featured online mode with rankings.

Wife: Why do you need to play online?

Well, you don’t. But it’s there. And some people like to.

Wife: That’s not what Alexey Pajitnov envisioned with the original Tetris. I’m a purist. Online play is stupid. But I do appreciate that they kept the original Tetris theme.

In the end, what I like most about Puyo Puyo Tetris is that it has a true all-ages appeal. I can see an eight-year-old playing an 80-year-old, both having a blast. And it’s especially fun with other people on the couch beside you. I’m sure some families will play it off and on together and with friends for as long as they own a Switch.

Kid: Yeah. It’s great that mom’s actually playing a game with us. It’s super rare.

Okay. Scores, everyone?

Kid: I’d give it an eight out of ten. The puzzles are a lot of fun, but that story…yeesh.

Wife: I abstain from ranking. I don’t want to get death threats, like you do sometimes when you score games.

I don’t blame you for that. I think the kid’s pretty close anyway. We haven’t had this much fun playing a game as a family in a long time. If weren’t quite so pricey (for puzzle game), I might have even bumped it up half a point. But eight sounds good to me.

Kid: But can you really put a price on getting mom to play games with us, dad?

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